Order and rebellion

Labour’s managerial politics from Miliband to Starmer

Emmanuelle Avril, Eric Shaw

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781526192288
  9781526192271
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526192264
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Modern British History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides the first nuanced and systematic study of Labour's internal politics in the years in opposition, between 2010 and 2024, under the leaderships of Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer. Written by two authors equipped with an intimate knowledge of the party, it offers an authoritative exploration of the politics of party management in one of the most strife-ridden and turbulent periods of the party's history, the Corbyn leadership, and furnishes a timely analysis of the character, purposes and underpinnings of the Starmer managerial regime. In so doing, it shines new light on often ill-understood controversies over antisemitism, the Israel/Palestine issue, and Brexitwhile reflecting on the tension between centralisation and pluralism is a party which continues to define itself as a democratic, membership organisation.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• A note on political labelling
• Abbreviations
• 1: Party management and the party's external environment
• 2: Labour's managerial structures, challenges and strategies
• 3: ‘No matter how hard he tried, he could not break free’: Miliband, New Labour and the party's programme
• 4: Miliband and organisational tensions
• 5: High hopes: the forward march of Corbynism
• 6: Party management and the entangled fracture lines of Brexit
• 7: Corbyn and the crisis over antisemitism
• 8: Corbynism: mission impossible
• 9: Labour under Starmer: taking back control
• 10: Starmer and candidate selection
• 11: The turning away: the management of policy divisions under Starmer
• Conclusions and reflections
• Index